


There's No Need To Argue Anymore

by sevenall



Series: Mercy Street [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Mercy Street AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 19:20:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6623077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenall/pseuds/sevenall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She really should have come home to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's No Need To Argue Anymore

The phone beeps in the middle of the quiz and Nanao sighs. Her mother calls six times a day, sometimes seven, and has done so from the day she moved out. She switches it off, knowing there'll be hell to pay later and tries to focus on the quiz again.

Takiko Ise never went to uni and doesn't understand why Nanao wants to. However, as she constantly reminds Nanao, she does pay for it and is therefore entitled to call at any time, asking where Nanao is, what she's doing and who she's doing it with. 

Nanao doesn't remember to switch the phone back on until almost an hour later. When she does, the screen lights up with incoming call at once. The Hanaya office number, of course.

"Yes, mother," she says wearily into the receiver. "What now?"

"Oh Nanao," Fusa says. "I'm so sorry. It's mama-san."

\--

Takiko Ise looks very small in the hospital bed, shrunken and pale, but not dead. Nanao expects her to open her eyes, sit up and scold her wayward daughter for skipping class. College is ex-pen-sive and you're not doing me any good, so go, go do your busy important things with your *friends*.

She never stopped trying to set up Shunsui and Nanao and always refused to believe that Shunsui and Jyuushirou are together. Yes, yes, I have seen that, many times in my youth, she said, when Nanao tried to explain the concept of gay and lesbian relationships. But only until the right woman came along!

Now she won't ever say anything again. Now she's gone and Nanao is alone.

\--

"Mother is dead," Nanao blurts into the pay phone at the hospital entrance. She has lost her purse somewhere and her coat, but gained a stack of forms and a ballpoint pen. Trying to shift the receiver, she drops it instead and when she picks it up again, no one's there.

\--

Shunsui drives her home. Or so she thinks, until they pull up outside his building. Jyuushirou waits for them in the lobby, looking so sad.

"I have to go," he says, "the kids. Oh, Nanao-chan, I'm sorry."

She nods. Of course, the kids. She knows he has to go.

Shunsui helps her up the stairs that seem more rickety than usual and leads her into his own bedroom. She is asleep before she can ask where he'll sleep and what about Jyuushirou?

\--

Later that night, she hears Shunsui talking to Jyuushirou in the kitchen, a stripe of yellow light coming through her bedroom door. They speak too low for her to make out the words, but she falls asleep listening to their voices.

\--

In the morning, Shunsui puts a teacup in her hands and makes her drink. She feels so weak, as if her neck can barely hold up her head, and the tea sloshes over table and floor.

"Flowers and incense for the Last Water Ceremony," she tells him. "Six coins and a knife for crossing the river."

There is more and she should remember, juzu beads, dry ice and mourning signs. Candles. Her mother's new name. She asks for a pen and paper to write it all down, but Shunsui only brings her another cup of tea.

\--

Hanaya opens at six. Nanao wakes up at four. There is so much to do.

It has been some time since she pinned up her hair, but her fingers haven't forgotten and the heavy white silk kimono wraps around her like a cocoon. The call to the university is quickly done and over with.

"You don't have to do this, Nanao-chan," Shunsui says, real pain in his eyes.

"I was neither grateful or obedient," Nanao answers, fastening the combs in her hair. "I never appreciated her. I should have come home to help her, but I didn't. This is the least I can do."

"You cancelled your classes."

"Yes." Nanao puts her feet into the tabi, then the geta. "That was her dying wish, I'm sure."

She actually doesn't have a choice. The accounts from the last quarter say so. She really should have come home to help.

"Is it money?" Shunsui asks, with unexpected insight. "Because if it is, I can…"

No, he can't. And it's not worth it, she's not that good a student.

On her other side, Jyuushirou draws breath to speak and she knows she must stop this, right now. Jyuushirou has put all his siblings through college. She doesn't think he has it in him to do it one more time.

"Never speak to me of this again, Kyoraku-san," Nanao says, and this is the first time in years that she has used a honorific to address him. "My mind is made up."

FIN


End file.
